Some days we're all Pretty Frank.

Metrics

So I was thinking once again about science the other day. No particular field or brand of science. Just science. And about how different people understand certain values very differently. For example, a ton probably doesn’t mean much to an engineer designing massive dams, bridges, or skyscrapers. But it can mean quite a bit to a rodeo clown. Especially when the animal looking to exact its revenge on humankind weighs about that much AND has, at its extremities, hard, pointy things with which he hopes to impale someone. And while quantum physicists concern themselves with a world smaller than an atom, cosmologists’ calculations involve distances measured in light years and masses greater than that of our own sun. A fraction of a second can make all the difference in track and field, but cat-like reflexes aren’t exactly required to win the world chess championship. And while this is all very fascinating, what I find truly wonderful is how all of these people for whom those things on which the very balance of all life hangs differ with a magnitude of but an entire spectrum can live without killing one another. Ah science…